I should have written about Kherlanji earlier, perhaps. Except that I did not know what to say.

When Shivam first sent me the link to the story, it took four attempts to read it through to the end. With each reading, I'd be overwhelmed by a wave - something between frustration, nausea, panic - rising up in revolt.

I did not want to read the story. I did not want to confront the fact that it was true, and that this was what the world like. That the perpetrators were ordinary villagers - like the ones I meet when I travel. Ordinary young and old men with complaints about electricity, the lack of health services and joblessness. That it is not one or two or three or four but nearly a whole village.

I still don't know what to say.

Except that Priyanka will not be avenged even if the whole village hangs. Priyanka will not be avenged as long as you have even one square inch on earth where a woman is held as the repository of male honour.